Cell Biology
Broken Hearts May
Mend After All
Neuroscience
Breathing Restored After Severe Spinal-cord Injury
Immunology
Insulin Prods Development of Type 1 Diabetes
Publishing
Publishing Partnership Issues First Six Consumer Health Books
Overweight Undermines Health
Gene Network Discovered Supporting Cell Migration
Voracious Kudzu Drains Thirst for Alcohol
Proceedings of the HMS
Faculty Council
HMS and Children’s Announce New Endowed Chairs
Three HMS Professors Elected to NAS
New Appointments to Full Professor
New Members Join Academy of Arts and Sciences
Gawande to Speak on Class Day
In Memoriam
Unexpected Tragedy in a Little
Girl’s Expected Death
Gawande to Speak On Class Day
HMS will hold Alumni Week this year on the Quad from June 8 to 12. The guest speaker on Class Day, June 9, will be Atul Gawande, HMS assistant professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, HSPH assistant professor in health policy and management, and a New Yorker staff writer. The week’s program and registration information can be found at www.hms.harvard.edu/alumni/week.html.
Proceedings of the HMS
Faculty Council
At the April 27 Faculty Council meeting, Barbara Wolf, manager of the HMS Office of Work and Family, gave a presentation on child care resources at HMS and its affiliates.
Wolf identified the two sites for child care on the Longwood campus: the Longwood Medical Area Child Care Center at 395 Longwood Avenue, which can accommodate 95 children of employees of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, HMS, HSPH, the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Joslin Diabetes Center, MASCO/Simmons, and the community; and Bright Horizons at Landmark Center, 401 Park Drive, which has a total capacity of 140. Bright Horizons serves BWH, HMS, Dana–Farber, and Children’s Hospital Boston.
Facilities
at the hospitals include:
• the Children’s Hospital child care center on Autumn Street, which
is only available to hospital employees;
• a backup care center with 18 spaces for BWH/Partners employees;
• 65 spaces restricted to MGH/Partners employees at MGH’s Charlestown
site;
• 24 backup spaces at 55 Fruit Street for MGH/Partners employees and
family members of patients; and
• the Children’s Quarters at the MGH Institute of Health Professions
(IHP) at the Charlestown site, which has 12 spaces for the Charlestown
community and 38 spaces for MGH/IHP and Partners employees.
Wolf gave some average yearly costs, including $21,000 for full-time infant care at one of the LMA child care centers, $17,500 for full-time infant care with a family child care provider, and in-home child care at either $44,840 for live-out care or $32,340 plus hidden costs for live-in care.
Wolf
also provided information about several available Harvard child care scholarships.
HMS/HSDM offers this support to employees who are:
• full-time faculty paid by HMS/HSDM;
• postdoctoral fellows paid by HMS/HSDM;
• staff paid by HMS/HSDM working at least 17.5 hours per week; and
• those with total family income of less than $100,000 per year (for
2004).
To be supported, the child care must be licensed—whether the service is offered by a center, a family child care provider, a summer camp, after-school program, vacation program, or an agency or an individual with a tax ID number. Awards range from $1,000 to $5,000 and are based on need, number of applicants, and available funds.
Wolf reminded members that the services of the Office of Work and Family are available to all faculty, staff, students, and postdoctoral fellows.
Susan Block, HMS associate professor of psychiatry at BWH, spoke next about the need for communication and attention to relieve end-of-life patients’ suffering. She noted that half of the families of patients who die in hospitals experience inadequate contact with physicians. While there is agreement that relieving suffering is a core responsibility of medicine, data show that 50 percent of dying patients experience significant pain during their last days.
Block cited the Institute of Medicine position that “educators should initiate changes in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education to ensure that practitioners have the appropriate attitude, as well as the relevant knowledge and skills, to care for dying patients.” She sees the current Medical Education Reform Initiative as an opportunity to train the kind of physicians we would like caring for our own families.
Block discussed an 11-year experiment in teaching end-of-life care at HMS to first-year students. The course includes faculty from palliative care, internal medicine, psychiatry, anesthesiology, oncology, pediatrics, and geriatrics and focuses on the development of longitudinal relationships with patients suffering from life-threatening illnesses. Small- and large-group discussions provide opportunities to deal with issues such as pain, cultural differences, ethics, and emotions. The course has earned high ratings from students, who have described it as the most helpful experience they have had at HMS in learning how to care for patients at the end of life.
Future challenges identified by Block included changing HMS’s culture to elevate the importance of addressing suffering, reinforcing the critical role of communication, providing students with longitudinal patient experiences, and resident and faculty development.
Joseph Martin, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, alerted the council that the provost distributed the first iteration of the Allston planning effort. Martin indicated that no decisions have yet been made.
HMS and Children’s Announce
New Endowed Chairs
Two new endowed chairs at HMS and Children’s Hospital Boston were celebrated in April. One takes the name of Judah Folkman, the Julia Dyckman Andrus professor of pediatric surgery, and the other of Alan Retik, HMS professor of surgery, both faculty members at Children’s.
 Photos by Liza Green, HMS Media Services |
|
Shown in the left photo is Folkman (right) with Donald Ingber, the first Judah Folkman professor of vascular biology. Ingber came to HMS as a postdoc investigating tumor angiogenesis in Folkman’s lab. His current research explores how cells change shape, move, and grow to form living tissues, including the development of vessels that feed cancerous tumors. The Folkman chair was created through an anonymous donation. In the right photo is Alan Retik (left), who led the creation of the Alan B. Retik, MD professorship in pediatric urology, the first endowed chair in the country focusing on this discipline. The professorship, funded by the Children’s Urological Foundation, the hospital, and individual donors, does not yet have an incumbent. Retik appears with Children’s CEO James Mandell.
Three HMS Professors Elected to NAS
The following HMS faculty were among the 72 new members elected to the National Academy of Sciences on May 3 in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
 Photo by Graham Ramsay |
Christine Seidman Howard Hughes Investigator Professor of Medicine and Genetics Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School Christine Seidman and her collaborator (and husband) Jonathan Seidman have discovered the molecular genetic causes of inherited human disorders, particularly those affecting the cardiovascular system. The Seidman laboratory has defined gene mutations responsible for several cardiomyopathies and congenital heart disease and has engineered models to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms by which mutations cause disease. |
 Photo by Steve Gilbert |
Tom Rapoport Howard Hughes Investigator Professor of Cell Biology Harvard Medical School Rapaport’s lab is interested in the mechanism by which proteins are transported across or inserted into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane in eukaryotes and the cytoplasmic membrane in bacteria. They study these processes with a variety of biochemical techniques, including crosslinking, purification of membrane proteins, and reconstitution into proteoliposomes and crystallization. They also study the mechanism of retrotranslocation of proteins from the ER to the cytosol, the formation and maintenance of the ER structure, the export of mRNA from the nucleus, and the role of SpoIIIE in B. subtilis sporulation. |
 Photo by Graham Ramsay |
Christophe Benoist Professor of Medicine Joslin Diabetes Center Benoist coheads the Immunology and Immunogenetics Section at Joslin Diabetes Center. His research uses advanced tools of molecular biology to discover how T lymphocytes acquire a repertoire of receptors that recognizes foreign antigens and cellular and molecular defects that underlie autoimmune diseases such as diabetes and arthritis. |
New Appointments to Full Professor
The following faculty members were appointed in February.
Albert Fornace
Research Professor of Genetics
and Complex Diseases
Harvard School of Public Health
Albert Fornace is the former chief of the Gene Response Section
at the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute.
A leader in the fields of radiation biology and stress signal transduction,
Fornace’s research has improved understanding of the molecular
responses and potential risks related to low-level radiation exposure.
John
Quackenbush
Professor of Computational
Biology and Bioinformatics
Harvard School of Public Health
John Quackenbush is an authority in integrating the disciplines
of biology, data analysis, and computation. Prior to coming to
the Department of Biostatistics, Quackenbush was an investigator
at the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), and held appointments
as professor of biochemistry at George Washington University and
as an adjunct professor of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University.
The following faculty members were appointed in March.
James John
Riviello Jr.
Professor of Neurology
Children’s Hospital Boston
Riviello’s research interests include pediatric epilepsy,
clinical neurophysiology, and critical care neurology. He is particularly
interested in status epilepticus neonatal seizures, and continuous
EEG monitoring; Landau-Kleffner syndrome, epileptiform aphasia,
and electrical status epilepticus of sleep; and treatment of refractory
epilepsy, especially epilepsy surgery. Winner of the Longwood Neurology
Teaching Award for Child Neurology, he teaches the Neurology Board
Review Course and is the director of the Child Neurology Course
of the American Academy of Neurology. Riviello is the director
of the Clinical Epilepsy Program in the Division of Epilepsy and
Clinical Neurophysiology in the Department of Neurology at Children’s.
He is also a member of the Critical Care Neurology Service.
Xihong
Lin
Professor of Biostatistics
Harvard School of Public Health
Lin’s research focuses on statistical methods in epidemiological,
environmental, and other observational studies, especially the
analysis of correlated data such as longitudinal, familial, hierarchical,
and spatial data and the analysis of high dimensional data. Her
other areas of research include measurement error, multiple outcomes,
mis-sing data, and genetic epidemiology.
The following faculty member was appointed in April.
Gregory Connolly
Professor of the Practice
of Public Health
Harvard School of Public Health
Connolly’s research group will evaluate the impact of policies
restricting workplace smoking on secondhand smoke exposure among
hospitality workers and the policies’ economic effect on
the hospitality industry. His team will study the structure and
marketing practices of the tobacco industry since the Master Settlement
Agreement, focusing on the agreement’s effect on cigarette
prices and consumption, as well as youth exposure to cigarette
magazine advertising.
New Members Join Academy of Arts and Sciences
 Photo by Richard Chase |
 Photo by Graham Ramsay |
 Photo by Graham Ramsay |
Photo
by Steve Gilbert |
Shown from left to right, David Bloom, the Clarence James Gamble professor of population and international health at HSPH; Alfred Goldberg, HMS professor of cell biology; Louis Kunkel, Howard Hughes investigator and HMS professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston; and Tom Rapoport, Howard Hughes investigator and HMS professor of cell biology; were elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on April 22. They will be formally inducted in ceremonies in Cambridge on Oct. 8. The academy was created in 1780 and addresses issues of intellectual consequence to the nation through interdisciplinary and collaborative projects and publications.
HSPH Grant Targets Cancer Disparities
The Harvard School of Public Health has received a five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to establish a program to reduce cancer disparities in minority and underserved populations. The program, named MASS CONECT (Massachusetts Community Networks to Eliminate Cancer Disparities through Education, Research, and Training), has received $500,000 for its first year.
MASS CONECT will establish a network of community leaders, academic cancer control researchers, policymakers, state and local public health agencies, local media, and public health and health care practitioners in Boston, Worcester, and Lawrence, and will involve representatives of HSPH, the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The network will develop programs for cancer prevention and early detection interventions in underserved communities. “MASS CONECT represents a major opportunity to bring together these multiple partners and maximize precious resources,” said Howard Koh, the principal investigator of the grant, the Harvey V. Fineberg professor of the practice of public health, and HSPH associate dean for public health practice.
In Memoriam
 |
Crawford worked at MGH for more than 60 years and served as chief of the Endocrine Unit’s Children’s Service from 1962 to 1991. While working at MGH, Crawford made contributions to the studies of growth disorders, intersex disorders, energy metabolism, and the prevention and treatment of burns. He was especially interested in the latter, leading public education efforts on burn prevention that led to legislation governing the flammability of children’s pajamas.
He studied literature and biology at Harvard College, graduating in 1938 before going on to Harvard Medical School. In 1946, after completing his residency in pediatrics at MGH, he joined the Army.
Crawford helped establish a close relationship between MGH and Shriners Burns Institute, serving as the first chief of pediatrics at Shriners and practicing there from 1968 to 1986.
“Dr. Crawford was the quintessential pediatrician and scientist,” said R. Alan Ezekowitz, the Charles Wilder professor of pediatrics and head of the Department of Pediatrics at MGH. “His incredible intellect, warm sense of humor, and great humanity inspired respect, admiration, and adoration among colleagues, families, and especially the children who were his patients.”